Ray Barone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raymond Albert "Ray" Barone is a fictional character from the American sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. He is played by Ray Romano, whose standup comedy provides the comedic themes and general style of the show.
Ray Barone lives in Long Island, just outside New York City. He is a sportswriter for Newsday. He lives with his henpeck wife Debra (Patricia Heaton) and their playful children Geoffrey, Michael and Ally (played by Sawyer Sweeten, Sullivan Sweeten and Madylin Sweeten).
Other members of Ray's family live across the street from him, including his brother Robert (Brad Garrett), his mother Marie (Doris Roberts) and father Frank (Peter Boyle).
The fictional Ray Barone is based loosely on the real-life Romano. For example, Barone is a father of twins on the show, and Romano also has a pair of twins of his own. (However, Romano and his actual wife, Anna Scarpula, have a total of four children, while the fictional Ray and Debra have only three.) And Robert Barone is based on Romano's real-life brother, who is a sergeant with the New York City Police Department.
Ray Romano has also appeared in the role of Ray Barone in some other TV shows, The King of Queens, The Nanny and The Simpsons. In fact, while Everybody Loves Raymond has ended, the Ray Barone character has recently appeared in episode 8.10 of The King of Queens. This episode reveals that very little has changed for Ray since Everybody Loves Raymond went off the air.
Ray has a whiny, nasal voice and is incapable of asserting himself, once even being beaten up by a Girl Scout leader. He and his brother Robert have many psychological problems stemming from their childhood—Ray is unable to say "I love you" to Debra and is in general emotionally uncommunicative because of the utter lack of affection from his father in his childhood. The legacy from Marie's overprotective upbringing is the co-dependent relationship the brothers share with her and their sibling rivalry that has persisted into adulthood.
His main activity outside of work and home is golf.
